Keelung City Council Speaker Huang Ching-tai (黃景泰) was detained yesterday evening by order of the Keelung District Court on suspicion of accepting bribes totaling NT$10 million (US$334,000).
Huang, who is running as an independent for Keelung mayor in the Nov. 29 elections, is accused of being a middleman, relaying bribes to fellow councilors of between NT$200,000 and NT$500,000, with the money allegedly being used to sway decisions on a construction project to enlarge Yuemei Road.
He has been accused of using fake receipts and quotes to defraud the council of public funds, the Keelung Prosecutors’ Office said.
Photo: Taipei Times
The prosecutors’ office retracted its detainment application at midnight on Thursday, but reapplied for the order after another round of questioning, it said, adding that after 10 hours of procedures, the court approved the detainment request and barred Huang from seeing any visitors.
The office on Thursday brought in council Secretary Huang Lien-mao (黃連茂); Chiang Pei-shan (江佩珊), Huang Ching-tai’s secretary; Kuo Mei-ling (郭美玲), a contracted employee; council Secretary-General Yeh Ching-tung (葉景棟); and Yeh Ming-yuan (葉銘元), the council’s head of meeting affairs, for questioning.
Huang Ching-tai won the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) primary to represent the KMT in the Keelung mayoral election, but the party revoked his nomination on July 9 after investigations began into a case of alleged improper influence peddling in a real-estate development project.
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